Staying with the same thread of conversation about the ways we build or erode ourselves through relationships, we arrive at a subject many people avoid precisely because it concerns them too directly: how to recognise, in real time, that a relationship is doing us harm.

I am not talking about relationships that go through difficult patches, because any genuine relationship has hard moments. I am talking about something different: a repeated pattern, an atmosphere that installs itself gradually and quietly changes the way you perceive yourself.

The signals don't arrive all at once

Toxicity in a relationship rarely appears at the first meeting. The process is slow and subtle, and that is precisely what makes it hard to identify. There is a concept in psychology called the "boiling frog syndrome": if changes are gradual, we don't register them as danger. That is exactly how toxic relationships work. You end up normalising behaviours that, a year earlier, you would have refused without a second thought.

The first signal we ignore most often is the physical one. The body knows before the mind does. If you feel a knot in your stomach before replying to a message, if you breathe more easily when that person isn't around, if you wake up drained after every conversation with them, these are not coincidences. They are information.

Gaslighting: reality reinterpreted

One of the most damaging mechanisms in a toxic relationship is gaslighting. It's not a fashionable term, it's a concrete practice: a partner or close person systematically contradicts your perceptions, memories and emotions. "I never said that." "You're too sensitive." "You're imagining things."

What happens over time is that you stop trusting your own sense of reality. You make decisions based on their version of you, not on what you actually feel or think. And that, in my view, is one of the most serious forms of emotional violence, precisely because it is invisible and hard to prove.

Love bombing followed by withdrawal

Another classic signal, particularly in romantic relationships, is the alternation between extreme intensity and sudden coldness. At first, everything is overwhelming in a positive sense: constant messages, exaggerated attention, grand declarations. And then, without any clear explanation, the person becomes distant, cold, unreachable. You feel confused and instinctively search for ways to recover that initial state. You make compromises, you adapt, you make yourself smaller.

Psychologists call this a cycle of intermittent reinforcement. The human brain responds to uncertainty with a greater need for reassurance. In other words, it is precisely the partner's unpredictability that deepens your attachment to them. This is not love; it is a survival mechanism activated by anxiety.

Gradual isolation

Toxic relationships often operate by narrowing your social space. Not necessarily through explicit prohibitions, but through seemingly harmless comments: "Your friend influences you badly." "Why do you need to go there with them, aren't you happy with me?" "Your family interferes too much."

If you notice that, over time, your circle of support has shrunk, that you've drifted away from people who were close to you, that you've given up activities that made you feel good, that is a serious signal. Isolation doesn't happen suddenly. It is built piece by piece, until the only "important" relationship left is the very one that restricted your access to all the others.

Why we don't leave

The question I always come back to when discussing toxic relationships is: why don't we leave when we see the signs? The answer isn't simple and, above all, it is not a matter of weakness or naivety.

There are several reasons, often overlapping. Trauma bonding, which is the attachment formed through the cycle of harm and relief, can make the bond with someone who hurts us just as strong as the bond with someone who loves us healthily, sometimes even stronger. Add to that the fear of loneliness, shame, the conviction that things will change, and, not least, the psychological cost of change, meaning the enormous energy required to reorganise your entire life.

Judging people who stay in toxic relationships is, in my view, counterproductive and reflects a shallow understanding of human psychology. Leaving such a relationship is not an instantaneous act; it is a process that can take years and that most often requires external support.

What you can do concretely

The first step is not leaving, it is observing. Keep a journal of interactions that leave you feeling bad. Write down what happened, what you felt, what was said to you. Patterns become visible on paper more quickly than they do in your head.

The second step is to speak with someone outside the relationship: a trusted friend, a therapist, or a counsellor. An external perspective is valuable precisely because you are, inevitably, too close to see clearly.

The third step, and perhaps the hardest, is to allow yourself to take what you feel seriously. Not to justify it, not to minimise it, not to extend the benefit of the doubt indefinitely. To listen to what your body tells you and treat that information with the same seriousness with which you would treat physical pain.

Toxic relationships are not resolved by more patience. They are resolved through clarity, courage, and sometimes through the difficult decision to choose your emotional health over the false comfort of a familiar but harmful relationship.

If you were to write down every interaction from the past month with the person who occupies your thoughts the most, what pattern would you see? And, more importantly, what would you decide to do with that information?